Today more kids go to college than ever before and yet many wonder if kids are truly ready. How do parents and pastors and influencers prepare young people for this important phase of their lives? Today I’m blessed to chat with Alex Chediak, author of the newly released book, Thriving at College. Alex is an Associate Professor of Engineering and Physics at California Baptist University.

I think Alex has written a powerful and much-needed book. What like about it is that it is so comprehensive. I’d highly recommend it to any high-school senior or college freshman (or their parents, for that matter!).

I've been reading a lot lately. Here are two mini-reviews of two rather excellent books:
A God Sized Vision by Collin Hansen and John Woodbridge.
I loved this book for many reasons. It's a novel idea--to present a basic history of revival. Revival is a subject I had little knowledge of, other than being part of "revival meetings" at times. What Hansen and Woodbridge describe are historic movements of the Spirit upon a nation or group of people. What I love is that they don't whitewash the warts of the leaders in each movement, they chronicle the excesses of movements, and they generally put forward the idea that revival in a country is something that God decides to do when He decides to do it. But, as people of God, it's something we should pray for. This book really inspired me to pray harder and longer for revival in our midst. I'm...

I’ve only been preaching for three years, so technically I’m a “rookie pastor.” But already I’ve seen some tendencies I’m working to correct. One I find in myself and also see in other Christian communicators is an over- use of the word, “most.”
We arrive at a countercultural truth in our study, perhaps a doctrine nobody seems to want to hear and we easily transition to, “You won’t hear that in most churches.”
Or we say, “In most churches . . . .” or “many Christians . . . .” It’s an easy thing to do. I not only hear this crutch in preachers preaching, but read it in blog posts and in books.
But I wonder if it’s healthy. For one thing, do we know what “most churches” believe? Dictionary.com defines “most” as “in the majority of instances.”
Can a preacher like myself honestly say with any degree of honesty that I actually...

I’m writing this as I’m meditating on the most beautiful moment in the history of the world. It is the moment when the risen Jesus says, “Mary.” Jesus, the Good Shepherd, knows the names of his sheep. And Mary was a most earnest seeker of Jesus. She had a past to be ashamed of, baggage that would embarrass most of us, things we wouldn’t talk about in polite company.